The Texas Masters meet is traditionally the last track meet of the season for me. This year, Coach Vaughan had me down for the 1500. If it were me I might have picked the 800 meters, but I was good with the 1500 in part because I had not run one all season. Unlike previous years the Lukes All Comers meets featured the mile each week and did not run any 1500s. Plus the two miles that I had run at Lukes were both soft.

Complicating matters, Marissa had a soccer tournament about 60 miles from the house. Three games at 7:30am; 12:30 and 4:30pm. This meant spending Friday night in a hotel with the all the kids, and hanging out at the soccer fields all day. Not really good race prep. I hydrated as best I could.

The race was scheduled for 7:50pm. After a good warm up, the starter called our event. It was a fairly large field with 10 runners. There looked to be several open runners - none of whom I recognized. I did not have anyone to pace off of, but that was OK - I'd just run my own race.

We lined up and I was assigned a spot on the outside of the track. The gun went off, and then it went off again? A false start on the 1500? Apparently a runner turned up late and they let him join us. As I jogged back to the start I realized that I was really wired!

We started again and by 100 meters I settled into third position behind two runners. These guys seemed to be on the right pace so I just stayed in their wake through the first turn and down the home stretch, which was into the wind. In the second turn it felt like they were slowing, so at the 400 mark I passed them both. My split at the 400 was 74:55. It felt good to be out in front running at my own pace. I tried to keep up a good tempo and push up the pace. I came through 800 meters at 2:31:58 (77:13), a bit slower, but I still felt like I had lots left in the tank. Still leading, I tried to kick it up a notch for the third lap and came through 1200 in 3:49:49 (77:77). The guy calling the splits told me that I had a 15 meter advantage. 300 to go, I pushed as hard as I could on the back stretch and around the last turn. Coming off the turn, one of the dudes passed me like I was standing still. Unreal. I kept pushing and finished in 4:46:68 (57:24). Coach Vaughan had my last 400 in 76:86.

It turns out that the dude who went by me finished in 4:43:50. He finished 3 seconds ahead of me in the last 100, and he came from 15 meters down with 300 to go. This guy really sandbagged the first part of the race!

Anyway, second overall, and first in my age group is just fine. And Coach Vaughan was pleased with my effort that resulted in "running the last three laps in essentially the same pace and even a bit faster in the end!" This effort would have represented a better time in the mile compared to the two Lukes miles I ran earlier this year. Its nice to peak for the last race!

Today was a good day to brew up a second batch in an effort to fill the empty bottles. The standard recipe was followed. But it should be noted that I used my last two Fuggles plugs. And I forgot to dry hop the last batch. So I need to make another trip to the beer store for some hops.

Overall it was not a bad week of workouts - but I am definitely starting to drag a bit. Over training is a possible danger. Monday started out with a rather uneventful but hot set of shorter intervals. On Tuesday, I was going to meet the Swim Maniacs at Loos but I was late and did not have a towel - so I met went to the club only to find the Swim Maniacs there instead of Loos, which was apparently closed. Wednesday I headed to SMU for two 600-200 time trials. I hit the first one a bit hard going out in 34. On the second set I slowed that down a bit and then ran each of the next three 200s much stronger relative to the first set. Saturday it was back to the Track for a 1200 followed by 4x120. The 1200 was horrible at much slower than my best mile pace this year. I just felt like I was dragging through it. However, on the 120's I finished with a 14.6 and a 14.1 which are my two fastest 100 meter times this year. Sunday was a struggle with the bike. I got started late and then I got just three miles down the road when I blew and innertube. Then when I inflated it with the CO2 can I blew the spare as well as destroying the sidewall on the brand new Continentals. Great. So Fran came and retrieved me. I replaced the rear tire and the set out again for a loop around the lake solo in the hot part of the day. Sheesh!

July 28 update - Last weekend I racked the wort to a fresh carboy. Today the Specific Gravity read 1.017, which suggests that it is not quite ready to bottle. I racked the wort again today, as I fired up the brewery and I needed to steal the yeast. I just realized that I failed to add any hops during the fermentation....

Monday I headed to the club fairly late since the knuckleheads in California had scheduled several meetings for noon my time this week. The rain had been holding out all morning, but wouldn't you know that as soon as my warmup was finished the thunderclouds rolled in. Thunder, Lightning, and tons of rain. I should have stopped but I decided to keep doing my workout - which aside from being covered from head to toe in mud, went well.

Tuesday I was supposed to meet Mary, Bob and Tom at the Farmers Branch Pool. But since I was tied up in meetings, it was not to be. I hit the pool and did a workout with a lot of kick in it! Wednesday I had 6x400 pickups on the track. During the warmdown my quads started t cramp, which is unusual for me. I attribute that to the extra kick in my Tuesday swim. Thursday I pulled a swim workout from January out of the bag which also went well, and again solo. Friday I did my usual 8 miler at noon. It was a little cloudy, and cooler than last week. Saturday was back to SMU for 10x150 on the track. It was hot but I managed to do them quite a bit faster than six weeks ago. During this session I got my HR up to 200 - which is certainly 100% Max! Today Tim and I did a 60 mile bike ride around White Rock Lake.

My weight has also been solidly holding below 160 for the second week in a row. I wieghed in twice at 157 and once at 158 and once at 155!

Compared to May my running and swimming was down, but my biking was way up. Given that I did not bike or swim the week that I was in France explains my decrease in pool time. I did make an effort to log more miles on the bike each week, which seems to have paid off. I am surprised that my running was actually down given the high mileage week that I had in France.

It was kinda of a crazy week. It started off with a great workout with Bob in the pool on Monday. Tuesday the Track meet got rained out. I hit the gym and ran on the mill, which should tell you how bad the rain was. Normally I enjoy running in the rain. With track meet rescheduled for Thursday, the rest of my routine was thrown off. So I went back to the pool on Wednesday and had another really nice work out. I have a feeling that my swimming is getting much better. Of course the likely answer is that I think that way because, I have not been swimming with the group. Once I get back with them, my false hopes will be exposed. Thursday I had a great 400 meter run. Friday I ran hard in the sun, which was probably stupid in like of Saturday's 100 mile bike. And today I wrapped up with an easier hour run.

The three times I weighed myself this week, I came in all three times at 157. My lowest weight in years and 21 pounds less than at Jan 1. This was particularly surprising given that I have be stead at around 160 for about six weeks.

It's certainly not surprising that Free Agency this year was going to be exciting. After all, it seems predetermined that in the aftermath of the firing of Marissa's coach, that her team would fall apart.

Her team exploded.

I guess some parents had complained about Joe, the coach. And Joe, like anyone, has his short comings. But he did a pretty good job. As near as I can tell the Parents that complained about Joe, were the same ones that left the team as soon as he was fired! That ought to tell ya something. We had ten players at that point. At that point several players started working out with different clubs. And then it became clear that two of the kids would not play next year. We played one final tournament and then declared the team disbanded.

Marissa worked out for a while with Joe's new club , The Strikers. It did not look like enough kids were coming out for that group. Then Marissa went to one of her old Coaches, Bruno from the Longhorns. But Bruno cut Marissa after a few practices. Marissa then hooked up with Diego Hincapie, who recently moved from Sting to Andromeda, where Logan plays.

Marissa played with Diego and Ciro for the entire month of June. Diego was really organized and professional in how he handled team placements for all of the girls. He committed early on to give Marissa a spot on one of their teams. The rosters for the teams were sorted out well before the July 1 date.

All views expressed in this post and on this blog are my own. None of my comments should be construed to represent the views of others including and not limited to: BMC Software Inc., Corel Corporation, Dun and Bradstreet and AC Nielsen. Copyright Chris Hughes 2004-2012